The Hottest Trends in UCaaS for 2022

The trends shaping UCaaS in 2022

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The Hottest Trends in UCaaS for 2022
Unified CommunicationsInsights

Published: March 10, 2022

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

UCaaS is everywhere in 2022. Over the last couple of years, the pandemic challenges have accelerated the move to the cloud for the majority of companies, large and small. Companies can’t thrive without excellent communications, and in a distributed environment, connections happen best through the cloud. UCaaS is the key to business continuity and agility, and continued growth. 

At present, experts believe around 70% of organisations will be leveraging UCaaS to some extent by 2023. This means throughout 2022; we’re likely to see an astronomical adoption of cloud technology. The question is, what kind of trends will be shaping the future of UCaaS as we know it?

Here are some of the most significant trends influencing how companies will invest in Unified Communications as a Service in the year ahead.

The Consolidation of UCaaS and (X)aaS

One of the major factors driving the adoption of UCaaS today is the challenge of the pandemic. Companies have discovered that they may be left without a fully operating company without a digital approach to business communications if the office suddenly has to close its doors. Moving into the cloud and leveraging more “as a service” offerings give companies more freedom to operate in an agile format, changing to suit the marketplace’s needs. 

As investments in “aaS” solutions grow, UCaaS will only be one of the many tools companies need to consider. Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) will also be essential for many brands, along with Communications Platforms as a Service. To reduce the number of complex platforms brands, have to navigate, there’s a good chance we’ll see more of these “aaS” spaces coming together in an all-in-one cloud environment. 

Building Better Experiences for Staff

The pandemic and a sudden shift to remote and hybrid working practices forced companies of all backgrounds to pay closer attention to supporting and enabling their staff. Employees unable to access the right tools in a comfortable, convenient environment could also deliver the right business results. Brands discovered that employee experience is the key to customer experience and a more robust business bottom line. 

UCaaS innovation in the future will centre around developing convenient experiences for employees, wherever they are. This involves not just enabling things like hybrid work with a UCaaS experience that remains consistent for users across all platforms but investing in new technology. Around 4 in 10 organisations plan on implementing AI into UC applications in the future, for instance. AI solutions can help noise cancellation for better meetings to automatically record and transcribe conversations.

Intercompany Collaboration

The rapid rush to a complex remote environment in 2020 and 2021 led to several problems for many companies, including poor approaches to external collaboration. Users in the modern world need to leverage UCaaS not just to reach their internal colleagues but also staff from other companies and partners, vendors, and stakeholders. 

As we move ahead into 2022, companies will need to think about the “guest account sprawl” in their UCaaS environments in terms of issues with compliance, security, governance, and costs. Increasingly, UCaaS vendors will also need to think about enabling team members to collaborate with external contacts anywhere, regardless of which collaboration software or hardware they want to use. Interoperability continues to be a significant challenge in the UCaaS space, but it’s something more companies are working towards.

BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier)

Many experts believe the future of UCaaS will be built on a foundation of flexible, adaptable, and open environments. Companies will want to access the productivity tools they love from one provider and the voice connectivity they want from a separate vendor without compromise. This has prompted an increasing number of “Bring Your Own Carrier” offerings. 

One prominent example of where BYOC solutions are precious is Microsoft Teams. Teams is currently one of the most popular UCaaS tools globally, but the Microsoft Business Phone environment is rarely the first choice for companies searching for a business voice. BYOC solutions like direct routing and Operator Connect allow voice vendors to join forces with Microsoft Teams to give clients the best of both worlds.

Team Collaboration as a Work Hub

Unified Communications as a Service may focus on the term “Communications” in the name, but there’s another “C”, which most companies consider just as important to their investment. Collaboration ecosystems built into the UCaaS environment have become the central hub of work in the age of hybrid operations. Companies are increasingly prioritising UCaaS investments, enabling their teams to work more consistently together in a distributed landscape. 

Collaboration ecosystems which offer access to everything from instant chat to file sharing and real-time whiteboarding tools will be increasingly important in the future. It will also be essential for vendors to offer their customers a range of ways to make hybrid teams feel more connected in these spaces, with solutions like “Together Mode” video conferencing and intelligent tools for building improved employee bonds. 

Personalisation of UC Tools

The personalisation of UCaaS tools is another trend being pushed forward by the rise of hybrid work. The changing workplace has driven the arrival of multiple new “employee personas” business leaders need to be aware of in their day-to-day environment. Each staff member in your company might need something different from their UCaaS space, which means personalisation is crucial. 

We’ve already seen a handful of market leaders in the UCaaS ecosystem experimenting with the potential for personalisation by allowing users to customise their UCaaS chat app theme or add virtual backgrounds to video conferencing. Personalisation may also include allowing users to build their to-do lists into their collaboration hub to keep track of their workflow or create their integrations with approved apps to boost productivity. 

The Rise of Augmented Meetings

“Augmented” meetings in the UCaaS environment can refer to several disruptive innovations happening in the marketplace. For instance, with artificial intelligence, it’s possible to enhance the quality of any conversation with real-time transcription or translation. AI tools can also automate time-consuming processes like recording and managing data or help with upcoming scheduling meetings. 

As UCaaS environments grow increasingly innovative, augmented meetings in the space could also include a closer consideration of concepts like extended, mixed, augmented, and even virtual reality in the interactions between team members. Market leaders like Microsoft and Cisco are already beginning to experiment with this landscape. 

 

 

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